A term you will hear web designers say a lot: responsive web design. What does it mean?
In simple terms, it means that your website is optimised to look good on any device, whether it is a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone.
Why is this important?
In the UK nearly 50% of web users are on a mobile device (by mobile, we mean a tablet or smartphone). Think about a website you look at on a large desktop or laptop and imagine how it would look if you viewed it on a smartphone in exactly the same format – it wouldn’t be a good experience. The size of the text would be too big, you would have to spend time scrolling around the screen trying to find the part that you wanted to see and how would you be able to select anything from the navigation menu?
A good responsive web design (RWD) will give you the same look & feel across different devices but with subtle changes that means the usability will improve.
Building websites for different devices is a bit of a pain as there are so many different devices with different screen sizes. Did you know that not all web browsers behave the same too? What might work on Chrome may not work on Edge… Before I learnt how to build websites, I never appreciated all these different permutations!
